


Token Gestures

by SharpestRose



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes they're all that's left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Token Gestures

When the world was young, important things were formed. Ideas were still in their simplest stages, symbolic and archetypal by mere virtue of being First.

So when there was evil, _wrong_ , for the first time, it was all the evil that had ever been and would ever be at once.

But in those desperate dark seconds at the birth of thought, when the sibilant whispers of ease and selfishness seeped into hearts and minds, another First was created.

The first _no_.

A spine that would not bend with weight, a gaze that did not flinch from the abyss. First defiance, first choice, first _right_. The first evil had been a thing that darkness feared, and this first good was a glowing thing born of all the light that new universe shone with.

This light could reach into the heart of blackest wretchedness and twist like paper on the wind, pulling apart terror and dread as if they were cobwebs.

 _Yes_ , the Evil had said in the silence of time.

But the answer had a louder voice.

-

The Apocalypse had seemed to come and go so often in Sunnydale that it was hardly a surprise for Dawn to wake up one morning and find that the prefix 'post' could finally be applied to the word in description of her town.

There weren't many left, human or demon or otherwise, and they took what transport could still be made to work and headed for Los Angeles. Dawn rode in the back of a station wagon that might have been modern fifteen years beforehand, with a little girl with big grey eyes and a boy whose skin was all hard and rough and dark green. _Exoskeleton_ , Dawn's highschool science memories told her. _Keeps the soft vulnerable bits underneath._ It made her blue windbreaker seem desperately inadequate as covering by comparison.

LA wasn't a whole lot better than Sunnydale, but there was a hospital still intact and enough survivors to bury the dead, which made it less of a health risk. Buffy and Faith found each other within two hours, and Dawn choked up to see the naked relief and love in their eyes.

 _I thought I'd never see you again,_ Buffy gulped out between sobs, running her fingertips across Faith's bruised skin and torn mouth.

 _I'll always find you. No matter what,_ Faith whispered in promise, and then they were kissing and if things had been different Dawn might have rolled her eyes and said _Geez, took you two long enough, the UST bus was running outta gas_. As it was, she burst into tears with the beauty of it and went to find herself some fresh water and maybe some food. The world was falling apart and they were kissing like they'd never been happier.

 _It really is the end of the world this time_ a girl was saying to a boy in the food line. They were a little older than Dawn, a little tougher looking, but she could see the fear like rot behind their eyes. She didn't have any fear herself, somehow. Her heart seemed to hum with stillness and surety, despite it all.

 _I heard that the dead are rising._

As if that was something new. Dawn stopped listening.

She tried not to listen that night, either, as Buffy and Faith fucked in the sleeping bag two feet away from Dawn's own bedroll. In movies, Dawn had always thought it was kinda icky when people had sex when the world was ending or they were in danger or whatever. Like, didn't they have better stuff to be doing? But she didn't feel that way now. When all you've got left are token gestures, it's important to make those gestures count for all they can.

It was three days later that the spectres, dark and ghostly and cold as the other side of nightmares, began to steal away the survivors. They would swoop down through walls and open their mouths wide, swallowing up even the largest and strangest of the group. And then they'd be gone through another wall, as insubstantial as thought, and there would be nothing left to show for the person or creature who had lived and breathed and now was just gone.

There was no way to fight them, nothing that could be done by anybody except for token gestures. _This is the way the world ends_ , an old man muttered to his wife as they huddled together beside Dawn in a cellar packed with humanity.

Buffy and Faith went together, as Dawn somehow knew they would in the end, fighting back-to-back because they didn't know any other way to finish their lives. And it was right, and Dawn drew her blue windbreaker in close against the cold on encroaching winter and wished them goodbye with all her heart.

She dreamed of a world that was alive, of a house full of laughing friends and family. The perspective was wrong, though, like a child who can't draw quite properly yet. Everything seemed slightly off kilter.

Willow was there, talking to Oz and laughing about some stupid trick he was doing with animal crackers. Xander and Anya were hanging mistletoe in the doorway even as Dawn's Mom fanned herself and complained about sticky July weather. A boy with a thin, clever face was playing chess with Angel, Cordelia chatting to them both in her bubbly prattle, children Dawn had never seen running from room to room underfoot in a neverending game of chase.

 _Home_ , Dawn whispered, the word breaking in her throat.

 _Yes_ , someone said beside her, and Dawn turned, and there was Tara with the same old Tara smile. _Don't be afraid, Dawnie. It won't hurt. I'll be waiting here to catch you._

 _I don't understand. Don't make me leave here, Tara. The world is dying, I don't want to go back there._

Tara shook her head, and touched Dawn's arm gently. It was like every hug Dawn had ever had in one moment.

 _No, Dawnie, it isn't dying. It will only die when hope dies, and you've still got that in spades. You glow with it. Once you were a Key, kiddo. Didn't you ever wonder what you might have been able to unlock?_

Dawn woke up with a gasp, hugging herself in the dark and gulping at the air. A screaming, high and thin in the voice of a child, made her jump to her feet and run from room to room in search of the source.

The little girl and boy she had ridden to LA with were cowering in the corner, one of the spectre shapes moving in towards them.

 _No,_ Dawn shouted, stepping forward to stand between the children and their attacker. The spectre paused, as if surprised at the defiance. It seemed to swell, grow, become even more horrific and looming as the seconds passed.

 _The first evil,_ Dawn thought to herself. _That's what this is. I see it now. And we're the only ones left, us three. It gets us, and it's won._

 _No._ The word was barely more than a whisper, Dawn's breath burning her lungs as she tried to suck in enough to keep her standing. _I won't let you._

When all you've got left are token gestures, it's important to make those gestures count for all they can.

The children behind her were crying. Dawn couldn't breathe. The Thing's mouth opened wide, impossibly wide, and stretched out to swallow her into whatever darkness lay beyond it.

 _No,_ Dawn said again, with the last air in her, and then everything was black and strange and impossible.

And she understood, and twisted, and unlocked the crack in the heart of the First Evil. Once, before she was a Key or a girl or anything besides, Dawn had been simply that. The dawn, the first ray of light in the dark. The _no_ when all hope was gone. Whatever there was left of herself in that whirlwind of darkness, Dawn focussed it on that kiss she had seen Buffy and Faith share while the world fell apart around them. _Love_ , she thought, remembering the word in that place where it had never been remembered before.

And everything went bright, and Tara took her hand, and Buffy and Faith there to welcome her home.

-

 _What happened?_ the little girl with grey eyes asked the boy with rough green skin.

 _I think we're safe now_ , he said, and stood up gingerly, offering a hand down. _Look, it's gone._

 _Hey_. The girl pointed to the spiderweb of broken glass that stretched across a pane in the wall. _The sun's coming up._


End file.
